Loads faster than Dartmouth's flag
Posted on 11/14/2003 3:44:04 AM PST by buffyt
HANOVER, N.H. -- A group of students who attended Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean's appearance at Dartmouth College on Thursday unveiled Confederate flags as he was introduced.
The group of about nine students, whom fellow students and Dean campaign staffers identified as conservative activists, did not otherwise disrupt the former Vermont governor's speech about paying for higher education. And Dean did not acknowledge them or refer to controversy surrounding his recent remark that he wanted to attract voters with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks.
The students sat with the flags draped across their shoulders throughout Dean's appearance.
Dean declined to comment as he left the college auditorium where he delivered his speech. Spokesman Matthew Gardner later dismissed the incident as "a political trick. And it's sad that whoever is behind this felt forced to resort to misrepresentation."
The demonstrators refused to say whether they were affiliated with any college organizations, even though one of their names appeared in the conservative publication Dartmouth Review as a contributor.
Student Xi Huang said he and his fellow demonstrators wanted to make a statement about what they felt was Dean's inappropriate use of the Confederate flag image.
"He said that for six months, and just recently gave an apology," said Huang, 19, of Boston. "We felt his apology was insufficient."
Dean's appearance also was marked by posters around the Dartmouth campus bearing the Confederate flag image. The posters were identical to ones Dean's campaign had printed, except that they were against a backdrop of the Confederate flag and they said "sponsored by young Democrats."
The president of Young Democrats at Dartmouth, Paul Heintz of Cambridge, Mass., said his group had nothing to do with the posters.
"The idea that we would have any part in using that symbol in any sort of way is preposterous," he said.
Heintz, who said he supports Dean, doubted that the incident was organized by any of the other Democratic campaigns. "I would say it has a lot more to do with a very small number of students who are socially conservative," Heintz said.
Another student in the group with the flags, Jonathan Beilin, 18, of Claremont, Calif., said that the incident was not orchestrated by any other campaign. But he refused to say how the students got together on the idea.
"It was fairly loosely formed," Beilin said.
Huang said that his interest in the demonstration was to make a statement about stereotyping.
"What's the difference between stereotyping a Southerner with a flag and stereotyping Asians? We're using it as something to draw attention."
Dean generated a firestorm of criticism when he told the Des Moines Register, in an interview published Nov. 1, that he wanted to be "the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks." He had made similar statements earlier in the campaign.
Several of Dean's rivals for the Democratic nomination attacked him for the remark after the Register story, saying the Confederate flag was a painful symbol to African-Americans and that the remark had demeaned many progressive-minded white Southerners as well.
Dean apologized for the remark on Nov. 5, saying, "I deeply regret the pain that I may have caused" people who were offended by it.
He explained that he was trying to say Democrats need to reach out to white Southerners who in recent years have abandoned their party to vote Republican.
Laurel Stavis, a spokeswoman for Dartmouth College, said it wasn't clear to her whether the demonstration or the posters violated school policy.
"There's no speech code," she said. "There's a difference between speech and behavior. We do have a college regulation that speaks to offensive behavior, but not to offensive speech."
Funny? I find the whole thing ridiculous.
I grew up in a state with both a Rebel and a Yankee heritage, so I know. And even President Harry S Truman, who integrated the armed forces, had a picture of Robert E Lee in his office in the White House!
Yes they do. A few years ago (somewhere back in the clinton era), there was an "incident" where a Harvard undergraduate hung a Confederate battle flag out a window in her room, and refused to take it down (at least for awhile) when attacked by the poobahs of the politically correct. She said that she displayed the flag to express her Southern pride. I don't remember what the final outcome was.
It would have been refreshing to see a liberal Democratic candidate for President champion those who love the Confederate flag, and NOT apologize for it! Unfortunately, that is not possible in the politically correct climate that we live under today.
Now, why would you ever say a thing like that?
(This is for you Dean: How many of them drive pickup trucks?)
Send it to the DNC for mass distribution.
More like foot in mouth (Bigfoot, that is!)
I asked to see what a METROSexual looked like and BAM!
  Howard Dean |
Howard Dean says he's running for President, and on paper he's quite a candidate. He's the longest-serving Democratic governor. He signed the first law in the country to allow gay unions. And, he's got the endorsement of America's favorite president-that-isn't: Martin Sheen. |
|
| HELP! |
(MET.roh.sek.shoo.ul) n. A dandyish narcissist in love with not only himself, but also his urban lifestyle; a straight man who is in touch with his feminine side. —metrosexuality n.  Example Citation: The only problem facing the metrosexual in an otherwise carefree existence is the inescapable effects of ageing. If 30 is 45 in gay years, then 26 is retirement age for the metrosexual — and no amount of biotechnological, rehydrating, whale sperm dermo-care can alter that.
—Jonathan Trew, "I love me so much," The Scotsman, July 24, 2002 |
What's that you say - you've never heard of the good 'ole Xing Huang family from Little Rock, Arkansas?
:~)
That might be one of his dumbest, most pandering moves. All that $10,000 would do is to allow colleges to raise costs by $10,000 and everyone still ends up paying the same. It would also be a nice subsidy for those "students" who could then go to a state college for free, party on until they flunked out, and make serious students miserable.
But, alas, he's pandering to Dartmouth students in this speech. The $10,000 sounds like a nice start for the cost of their educations there.
hehe !And I liked TigersEye's comment: Redneck metrosexual. ha! ha!
... you hunt deer with rubber bullets.
hehe ! ...
I don't think it's funny, creative, or cute. Enough Americans died following that flag that its misuse is as inappropriate when performed by snot-nosed ivy-league punks as it is by bozos in white sheets who think it means something it doesn't. Note that these college kids were using it to 'embarass' Dean, obviously adhering to the KKK's attempted hijacking of the flag as a symbol of racism.
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